An Aussie said she had a panic attack after being temporarily booted off a flight before being allowed back on and having to sit with a stranger’s toddler in her lap.
Lily Winward, a 19-year-old from Ulladulla in south east NSW, embarked for Australia from Athens in September after competing in a European athletics meet, but the trip home turned sour when she was told her plane from Abu Dhabi was overbooked.
Ms Winward said Etihad staff informed her she would be put up in a hotel near the airport until a new seat could be arranged.
This distressed the teen because she was travelling in activewear tights and a singlet without a change of clothes to go out of the airport in the country where traditional modest attire is expected for women.
The situation deteriorated when she felt ‘harassed’ by a male passenger who had also been bumped from the flight.
Ms Winward resisted the man’s insistence she share a taxi with him and said she suffered a panic attack after Etihad staff reportedly showed little care about her plight.
‘I was quite upset. I was crying, and I said, ‘I just want to get home; I don’t feel safe going to a hotel, especially with this guy bothering me’,’ Ms Winward told Nine newspapers.
Following the panic attack, Ms Winward was told she could get back on her original flight but would have to take a seat that had been allocated to a toddler.
Lily Winward, 19, had a nightmarish trip back to Australia after competing in a European athletics meet
This meant Ms Winward was forced to hold the stranger’s child on her lap for much of the flight.
‘I just think it’s not good enough, for someone who has paid $3000 for flights, it shouldn’t happen,’ she said.
Since the ordeal Ms Winward said her travel agent complained multiple times to Etihad without receiving any substantial response.
Daily Mail Australia contacted Etihad Airways for comment.
The issue has raised uncomfortable questions regarding the treatment of young female Western travellers by Middle Eastern airlines.
More than a dozen women including five Australians were forced off a Qatar Airways plane in Doha and made to undergo an invasive search and exam when an abandoned baby was found in the airport bathroom in 2020.
The women were strip-searched and forced to undergo gynaecological examination.
Following complaints made by the then Morrison government, Qatar apologised for the incident.
‘The incident is considered a violation of Qatar’s laws and values,’ Qatar’s then-Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said and stated the matter had been referred to prosecutors.
In August a young Aussie living in Britain warned travellers headed to Europe to pay an extra fee for their plane seats if they want a guaranteed spot because of the rampant practice of overbooking.
Tiah Slattery cautioned those visiting the continent to pay an added airline fee to avoid ‘chaotic’ disruptions to their travel.
The expat became stranded at Tirana airport after purchasing a $575 ticket on a budget airline and being bumped from an overbooked flight during the summer travel season.
When booking her travel, Tiah had declined to pay an optional £25 ($48) charge to secure a seat, leaving her stranded at the sweltering airport.
The Aussie was on a waiting list with 11 other people for a flight out and became ‘desperate’ after learning the next available flight wasn’t for another month.
